On September 26, 1991, my parents, Wayne and Jean Hage, filed an unprecedented takings case against the federal government.  They claimed ownership of property rights in the federal grazing lands, which the land management agencies had taken through environmental regulations.

Hage v. United States marked the first time a western rancher had made such a bold claim in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.  It was a necessary case because ranchers across the West were facing the extreme environmental agenda of “Cattle Free by 93,” a plan to push them off the rangelands they had held since the country was settled in the mid 1800’s.  Hage was filed to resolve the issues of ownership and reign in the land management agencies pushing the environmental agenda.

However, our greater problem was how to support this important property rights case.  Several large legal foundations had already turned us away as they could not commit to undertake the tremendous work and expense it would require.
 

Humble Beginnings
Using a small room in my home in Boise, Idaho, a donated computer and a list of 1,000 names from Ron Arnold’s Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, we mailed our first letter announcing the filing of the Hage case.

To our astonishment, the support came in as people across the nation began hearing of our fight.  We were taking the government head on and standing up for American property owners and in doing so, a new association for property rights was born.  Backed by a committed board of directors lead by President Frank Duran, we developed our mission into one that promised to represent the grassroots, restore full respect for property rights, and pursue avenues that could bring true protection to America’s landowners.

We were not going to develop a think tank, or lobbying association.  We were going to help people on the ground.

We attracted the support of men like Jack Swanson, a renowned western artist whose work hung in the oval office under President Ronald Reagan.  Jack had become great friends of my parents and witnessed the regulatory battles we faced during his many visits to our ranch.  Jack is the one who managed to talk my father into writing his book, “Storm Over Rangelands.”

To bring attention to our cause, Jack took it upon himself to paint a magnificent oil painting capturing the spirit of the West.  When we unveiled this in Carmel Valley, California in March of 1992, it was valued at $25,000.  He titled it “Stewards of the Range,” and as we traveled around the country offering chances to win the painting, our cause took on the memorable name.

Standing Ground
From our humble start, we financially supported the Hage case through three trials and many legal challenges where we faced not only the full opposition of the federal government, but also the furry of major environmental organizations that included the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resource Defense Council who joined the case as Amici Curie.

We also began developing tools for landowners so they might avoid the fight my family faced, developing strategies people could learn and implement to protect their way of life.  We spread our message and solutions through the newspaper “Cornerstone,” now published under the title of “Standing Ground” with the American Land Foundation.  We use this vehicle to distribute substantive analysis of the issues and solutions people can use to protect their property rights.

We also helped develop and distribute the Liberty Matters News Service, a national bi-weekly summary of property rights issues, which began by fax in 1994, and continues today.

Another critical component we created at Stewards was a series of in-depth, issue-specific workshops designed to train people how to protect their rights and resolve related problems to their benefit.  These were reinforced each year by our annual conference on property rights.

Fifth Amendment Victory
Because our cause was born on the front lines of the property rights battle, we approach each issue facing landowners differently than most organizations. Our primary goal for every issue we take on is to win the war for the fundamental right to own property in America.  Building our organization was the secondary, but necessary goal, as it provided the vehicle where people could join and make our mission successful.

We began to broaden our efforts taking on major federal legislation and actions in Washington, D.C.  In our early years, we helped defeat three grazing bills, which would have dramatically impacted private ownership of water in the dry, arid West.  We developed the arguments and published papers on other anti-property rights challenges, eventually leading to the defeat of measures such as CARA – the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, the National Heritage Rivers Act, and the legislative attempt to give law enforcement authority to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that would have rivaled enforcement by local sheriffs.  After 9-11, we supplied arguments to key Congressional leaders who opposed and defeated another attempt of the BLM to expand their police powers taking advantage of the crisis our nation was facing.
Stewards has also supported other defining cases over the years, including the important water rights case brought by the Lowry family in Idaho.  Their case reversed a decision that would have allowed the federal government to take ranchers stock water rights in Idaho, and reaffirmed the ownership of that water to the rancher’s who were first-in-time, first-in-right.

And, most importantly, after 17 years in court the catalyst that launched our organization finally reached a resolution -- Hage v. United States was decided in favor of America’s landowners.

On June 6, 2008, Judge Loren Smith of the United States Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of the Hage family and all Western ranchers stating we own the water on federal lands that flow to our private lands, all the range improvements, and the ditch rights-of-ways carrying rancher’s water across federal lands.  The government had claimed ranchers had no property rights on the federal grazing allotments.  The Judge further ruled that the government’s regulatory actions denied my family the use of our property causing the regulatory taking of our property and awarded just compensation, interest and attorney’s fees.

The valiant band of Americans that stood behind this case when many experts predicted we would fail, won the most significant Fifth Amendment victory of our time.

Bringing Control Back Home
Early in our development, we attracted the help of a giant of a man, Fred Kelly Grant.  With his long and diverse history in the legal field, he took on the task of writing the critical bill analyses we used to educate our members on anti-private property legislation, helped advise our members as they faced infringements on their property, and served as our Litigation Chairman for many years.  In 2006, he agreed to serve as our President, maintaining the consistent leadership that had guided our organization from the beginning.

During this time Fred was also helping Owyhee County, Idaho protect the grazing industry that supported the local economy.  It was here that he first utilized the local government coordination authority with the federal land management agencies, allowing the local entity to be intimately involved in the decision-making process on natural resource issues.

What he discovered and refined over the past 15 years, is the “Coordination” mandate, which requires the government agencies to work with, and not ignore, the will of the local government.  Owyhee County and Modoc County, CA who also began implementing this approach in the 1990’s, have achieved unprecedented successes for the protection of their citizen’s property.  Where this coordination strategy is being implemented today is where the government takeover of our land has been slowed and in some cases reversed.

CALL America
In the most recent years, Stewards, along with the American Land Foundation, has focused primarily on training people how to assert this authority while supporting those implementing the “coordination” strategy.  It is the most promising tool for protecting property rights that we have seen during our 17 formal years in this battle.  This strategy has the potential to be used for numerous issues, not just property rights, and in virtually every area of America.  It is being deployed to fight super-corridors, illegal immigration, smart growth and other issues that directly impact local governments.

Even though Owhyee and Modoc County had proven this strategy works and had been using it successfully for over a decade, it had not spread outside these counties boarders until Stewards and the American Land Foundation took on the task of promoting and training people how to use this unique approach to protect property rights.

The Coordination Strategy has the potential to reverse the top down command and control policies governing our nation today.  It is successful because it relies on the level of government that is the closest to the people, and is creating a resurgence of local control that can impact the national scene.

Stewards of the Range’s best years are ahead.  We have secured some of the most important property rights victories of our time in a climate when victories are few.  We have developed a close association with the American Land Foundation, which has achieved its own remarkable successes over the years.  We have withstood the growing pains every start up organization faces and now have 5,000 active members and 15,000 additional contributors nationwide.

And most importantly, we have devoted our efforts to strengthen the power of people at the local level building the foundation from which America can be restored as the beacon of liberty she is called to be.

Those humble beginnings have proven to be our greatest strength, as it is there that we found the people willing to step forward and take on the unpopular but necessary battles.  As a result, Stewards has been the catalyst behind some of the most important property rights victories of our day, and will continue to do so as more and more Americans join this historically important cause for the restoration of individual liberty.